520 ATTACK OF ILLNESS, 



of plants which he had been able to save from the influence 

 of the damp climate ; and I was occupied in settling by 

 astronomical observations the longitude and latitude of the 

 capital,* as well as the dip of the magnetic needle. These 

 labours were soon interrupted. We were both attacked 

 almost on the same day by a disorder, which with my fellow- 

 traveller took the character of a debilitating fever. At this 

 period the air was in a state of the greatest salubrity at An- 

 gostura ; and as the only mulatto servant we had brought 

 from Cumana felt symptoms of the same disorder, it was 

 suspected that we had imbibed the germs of typhus in 

 the damp forests of Cassiquiare. It is common enough for 

 travellers to feel no effects from miasmata till, on arriving 

 in a purer atmosphere, they begin to enjoy repose. A cer- 

 tain excitement of the mental powers may suspend for some 

 time the action of pathogenic causes. Our mulatto servant 

 having been much more exposed to the rains than we were, 

 his disorder increased with frightful rapidity. His prostra- 

 tion of strength was excessive, and on the ninth day his 

 death was announced to us. He was however only in a 

 state of swooning, which lasted several hours, and was fol- 

 lowed by a salutary crisis. I was attacked at the same 

 time with a violent fit of fever, during which I was made to 

 take a mixture of honey and bark (the cortex Angostura} : 

 a remedy much extolled in the country by the Capuchin 

 missionaries. The intensity of the fever augmented, but it 

 left me on the following day. M. Bonpland remained in a 

 very alarming state, which during several weeks caused us 

 the most serious inquietude. Fortunately he preserved suf- 

 ficient self-possession to prescribe for himself ; and he pre- 

 ferred gentler remedies, better adapted to his constitution. 

 The fever was continual; and, as almost always happens 

 within the tropics, it was accompanied by dysentery. M. 

 Bonpland displayed that courage and mildness of character, 

 which never forsook him in the most trying situations. I 

 was agitated by sad presages ; for I remembered that the 

 botanist Loefling, a pupil of Linnaeus, died not far from 

 Angostura, near the banks of the Carony, a victim of bis 



* I found the latitude of Santo Tomas de la Nueva Guiana, commonly 

 called Angostura^ or the Strait, near the cathedral, 8 8' II', the long. 

 66' 15' 21". 



